Grammy Awards ratings about even with 2016

The Grammys were once again the biggest thing on TV Sunday night, though the promise of performances from Beyoncé and Adele and tributes to Prince, George Michael, and Sharon Jones (among others) weren't quite enough to bring the overnights up from the last few years.

Sunday's nearly four-hour-long telecast drew a 16.0 household rating in Nielsen's metered market overnights and a 26 share, down just a tick from 2016's 16.1 household overnights. (Note: The 2016 Grammys were on a Monday.) In 2015, the kudocast drew a 16.6 overnight rating, which was itself a six-year low. The audience for 2016 ended up drawing 24.95 million viewers, while 2015 came in with 25.3 million.

However, the Grammys are the second-biggest awards show of the year, behind the Oscars, and the 2017 edition is like to keep that tradition alive. Updated ratings will be available this afternoon.

For those who opted to watch "The Walking Dead" return to AMC, or the start of the final season of HBO's "Girls," this year's Grammys were marked by tributes both somber (Adele for George Michael) and not (Bruno Mars and The Time for Prince), and Beyoncé once again wreaked havoc on social media with a performance that would have been impressive for someone not currently pregnant with twins, and was thus particularly remarkable for the very much with-children Bey.